I Remember
by viicious
Summary: An Advent Children fanfiction. A gift to Monotone Magpie about her version of Yazoo, and what would have happened if they actually saved him in cryogenics as a weapon.
1. Chapter 1

_...or cryogenically frozen until they needed someone for a suicide mission._

A hydraulic hiss erupted from behind the cell. A rotation wheel squeaked, projecting the cell outward into existence. White-coated scientists in a drowning blue light accepted the cell with unlikely and cruel hands, with fingers like greedy, pleading peasants. The red LED lights that lit up the train disappeared, one by one, like fading memories, when the wheel squeaked the tray back into place. The soulless scientists in blue hoisted the cell onto the metal ground. They turned away to synchronise certain hateful events, and the cell stood in lonely azure light.

The cold formaldehyde encased a shadow, lost in time, this grain and that grain forgotten, and the yellow sand encasing what was lost and will be forever. Each grain falling makes the unforgettable sound of forgetting. One less memory to recall, one less instance to pain over, one less reason to need foolish human feelings.

Hydraulics murmured in the shadows of the blue room and ten and twenty black, metallic arms shot forward with haste, grasping what it could of the icy cage. The arms tore chunks of solid encasement off, and the shadow came into being, leaving its timeless illahe and reigning again pretenses and falsities that all humans know. The arms seized the shadow, now all one blue colour, and lowered it to the ground. As the arms slithered back into hubs of mechanical non-existence, tubes came forth, with barbed ends. They viewed the shadow; they felt the lack of soul. They knew it not a being with a heat, with a glow, or with a mind. It was dead while it was alive. The tubes slid up the cobalt shadow's orifices: nose, mouth, ears, perennial areas, as many as they could find. It sucked the cage from within, taking the slime of the eyes of the shadow, and the heart, and the soul. The shadow awoke, screaming, a rage, in pain. It saw only blue; no shapes, no shadows, no point of reference. Lost in a confusing sea of solid navy, all it knew was chaos. It tried to move, and couldn't. It tried to fight the invisible monsters, but it couldn't. The monsters took him, and his sight came to form but mere outlines; a tiny thread aligning the outlines and crevices and details of the monsters.

"ShinRa Two!" one cried in an obstructed language, something unclear to the sad shadow. They detained it and it fought. It fought with a vigor far forgotten. It struck out its sickening limbs and one of the monster's faces disappeared from view with a ribbon of red flying through the blue screen in the shadow's eyes. It felt a prick in its side, and with a grievous sadness, it ceased to fight and accepted the hated black sleep it had known for years and years.

* * *

The shadow awoke. Another blue room. It already hated this colour. But it loathed another colour far more. A soulless, valueless colour, that represented all that his abhorration was. Any colour was better than that colour, that shadow would openly admit. The shadow sat still. Sensors that were once dead and cold in that casing of pretend ice were now working and functional. It hadn't felt these in quite some time... a memory once returned again. The shadow feared it. All those nooks and folds of forbidden skin were empty. There was no ice, there was no cold, there was no feeling. Nothing existed. But a sound. A mere sound of recognition. A language now remembered again. Another memory. The muscles, once used vigorously, ached with disuse, as the shadow turned its head on the soft expanse that rest beneath him. He saw that it was the colour for which he felt revulsion. It screamed, then, in vehement anathemas, the odium for such a colour. It didn't understand how such a colour could be used so frequently all at once.

One of the monsters, now well in a good design of eye, attempted to arrest him, again, like in the sapphire room of cold, lost memories. He fought again, and again, that small prick came, and again, he would accept the black sleep. It did not come this time. But his limbs, far too weak to move, rested at his sides with limp quintessence. The monster spoke, and was attempting to be comforting. The shadow knew better. Only lies crawled from their mouths and dropped like roses and diamonds to the ground.

"ShinRa Two," it spoke, the shadow now with the understanding of these sounds, "it may be a new experience coming from extended sleep, but you must calm yourself."

What exactly was it saying? It was talking too speedily. The shadow's head was no longer vague or alert. It was a combination of both, ceasing to grasp anything solid, but not slipping into depths of overlooked darkness.

"Do you understand me?"

The shadow attempted to speak, but even if it knew the words of that foreign language, it couldn't move its solidified lips. It made a gruff sigh in the endeavor, and another monster appeared, trying to hear. The two monsters looked to each other, the shadow feeling the contempt leak off them like the way their cursed souls did.

"We have an assignment for you," the second monster said with a less kind voice, "that will require your expertise."

That was another way of saying it was now infantry, a pawn and useless, a life meant to end.

"You are to assassinate the leader of a very prominent anti-ShinRa group called COMMAND. His name is Marin Leip. He has led COMMAND for years and has done incalculable and unforeseeable damage to ShinRa, Incorporated."

This ShinRa the shadow kept hearing... it was so familiar. When it thought of the word, it was filled with a mix of confused and unrecognisable emotions. ShinRa Two... it was the shadow's name. What did the shadow have to do with a ShinRa that some Leip is trying to kill? Memories forgotten was what it could conjure. An object, flat and tan in colour cascaded with the spread under him, its contents coming forth with inertia. They were the hated colour. The shadow was trying best to be rid of the forsaken colour. But moving wasn't an option at the point.

"That is the file. You will report to the D-Hall at 2000 hours."

The two monsters were leaving. They were leaving the withered shadow to its lack of thoughts and sense and feeling. They went through a rectangular cavity in the adjacent wall. One monster turned, and with a small glint of some kind of feeling, the shadow expected it to stay. Instead, it only spoke.

"Be aware of yourself, Yazoo," it said, and replaced the cavity's remainders.

Yazoo...

Yazoo...

No. The shadow wasn't mistaken. It thought correctly. The shadow was Yazoo. Yazoo was a man. Yazoo had a life. Yazoo knew the endless plains of pleasure as much so as the endless plains of hurt. And the memories did become clear, and his dulled eyes did fill with a hot liquid he remembered so well with a happy pain in his once empty heart.

Yazoo did not forget.


	2. Chapter 2

_...or cryogenically frozen until they needed someone for a suicide mission._

Everything was that endless ocean of cerulean shades, on and on, like a rolling wind of cold feelings and colder memories. All colours, all life gone with but this one hue. And so powerless it was. Such a short wavelength, diffused so easily. It was a calming colour... but also a very cold one. All the halls and the rooms and the sky... even it was the sad blue Yazoo had come to agree with. It was not as awful as his most hated colour, of course. So he would take it with open arms if the need arised.

Wordless thoughts and empty faces filled the silver clone's mind, as he stared past his hands which held his beloved weapon. Sitting amongst but few others, in the shuddering dark room that took them to unknown places. Sitting, hunched over his legs, dreaming a dream that was gone. Someone touched him, and for but a fleeting moment, he could smell _his_ familiar smell, feel the warm grasp of his hand, brush against his thin, yet tender lips. Reality came crashing in with the truck's crashing over rugged Midgar rubbish. Yazoo turned his sad eyes toward the person who'd dared to touch him like he was their own. What cruel creature would torture this blue shadow more than he had already had? He saw a young man, a worrisome look on his face. It was the kind of person who showed but faux concerns, and pretenses of feelings. The kind of person who lied through all orifices on a regular basis and had the genius talent to hide it all.

He smiled a small smile, but Yazoo only stared through him. The dull, aqualine crystals that were embedded in his face were as lifeless as the Velvet Nightmare; only to come alive again through one specific means.

Hojo.

The thought hurt. It touched a delicate scar in his heart, and mind, and soul. The being he'd once loved more than anything in the entire universe. More than his soul, more than his life, more than the sun. And, like his very nightmare had come to life, he had been torn away from the love that lit his life, and frozen for eternity. Frozen in the ice, and frozen in his heart.

They said he died.

Yazoo couldn't expect much less to come from them. His heart had already been torn to shreds. How much more damage could they do with news or opinions? But it was a sort of sad reminder of where and why he'd come to be. Just a clone. The pawn. The life for waste. At least he would be somewhere without this mass cruelty abound, and in a warmer place than this. That was what happened to souls like his.

Yazoo felt eyes upon him, and turned, again, to the young man. He was still grinning a bit. Yazoo lowered his brows and glared at him. The young man took it as incentive to greet him.

"Hi," he said in a low voice, now hardly audible above the rumbling of the ShinRa vehicle which sped across wasteland. "I'm Peter."

Yazoo merely scowled. Was this pity he showed Yazoo? He knew the dispatch all knew of the clones. The first ones had been the utter best, and they knew it. A single glance from one meant severe trouble. But this foolish young man... Maybe he was new.

"So, you're Yazoo, right?" he kept going, oblivious to Yazoo's defiant features, "It's a pleasure to meet you. Really, I'm honored to be working with a clone of past. They say they were the strongest. The new clones aren't worth a gil. But I bet you could really hurt 'em. Oh, do you know where we're going? It's to some scumbag's place."

He just kept going on and on. Yazoo suddenly had the amusing thought of several items he could use to shut the young man up. He seemed so fidgety, and yet, kind altogether. Maybe he was just nervous and needed someone with which to talk.

"This Leip guy, he's pretty powerful, and he leads COMMAND. They're a lot like the rebel groups around, but they're actually _doing_ something, you know? Hah. These people don't have any idea. They're as strong as other groups like Guard 27 and AVALANCHE. Whew. But these guys mean business. I mean, they're just taking everything out on ShinRa an—"

"Shut up."

The boy was probably offended by Yazoo's words.

* * *

Amongst the forgotten city's deadened alleys and vacant buildings, the dispatch creeped like an encroaching disease through each hair-thin walkway and turn stealthily, seeking the rebel. Arms high and shields up, they searched for the headquarters of COMMAND, and soon, would execute their mission. Yazoo walked like a ghost, no heat rising from his lips and no disturbances in the dust beneath his lissome feet. He was a graceful spirit, dead and gone and cold and empty, yet still so beautiful in the essence of the living. Weaving in and out of trash, Yazoo was despirited to hear Peter again begin to speak. 

"S-Sorry about in the truck. Wasn't really thinking. I mean, how would _I_ feel if some, you know, nervous weirdo just comes up to me afterI come out of Containment and just starts badgering me with all these endless questions and talking about the stupidest stuff in the world and going on and on in run-on sentences as if he was, like, some special book, or something?"

Yazoo stopped straight, and Peter, again not thinking, collided into Yazoo's backside. Yazoo turned slowly, contempt burning in his soulless eyes.

"You need to shut up. If they hear you, they'll attack."

Yazoo turned to walk again, and Peter had been given the chills. He'd never seen anything so frightening, and scolded himself, following Yazoo. They continued on, questions of uncertainty rising in their minds. A man coughed, and gunfire was heard. COMMAND had found them, and they fell into formation. Yazoo ran straight to the front, time passing like a wire to him, seeing every tiny movement in excellent detail. He fired the Velvet Nightmare, hitting the tiny targets of hidden men with one-bullet precision. Peter was amazed and only managed to fluster out "how did you do that?" before an explosion blew them twenty feet away.

"Stop talking and shoot!" yelled Yazoo, as he jumped back up, rage filling him, and rounding back to the side to get into the unsound building in which it was apparent Leip resided. It was all clockwork. This one fired, Yazoo fired. That one fired, Yazoo returned fire. A dispatch member got shot, his position was filled in. This is the only other thing Yazoo lived for: cold battle. The tactics and understanding that awaited his move like a giant chessboard where check was his way of life.

Trouble came, then, in the form of 5 men in black suits and armour, with SR Recsistor 451s and c-tags, waiting to fall upon the enemy like rain from a foreboding cloud. Yazoo glared at them all, calculated each of them with seconds draining life away, knowing the next move of each, and waiting to counter it. It was like playing with Hojo; there was no winner. Only strategy.

They fired, and Yazoo jumped, cascading the wall, and he sunk through a hole, bullets following. Yazoo ducked, readying the Velvet Nightmare in palm. He turned and shot two bullets. Two COMMAND members dropped, thick, black blood draining out onto their black helmets. Peter came running through the other side.

"Yazoo! Are you all right?" he called.

"Just kill them!" he shouted to Peter.

Peter slammed into the wall, pulling his Disgale N120 over the top and shooting in a straight line, the shaking of the machine rattling against the bricks, making a loud, but satisfying sound. It was death in another form, and the panting Yazoo would've smiled at it.

"Oh shit, look out!" Peter cried, as a c-tag came flying over the wall. Yazoo jumped up and Peter followed back the way he had come, down the side of the wall. A green explosion burst on the roof, tails of the Ultima spell swirling around, chasing after the two. Peter rolled into another building's under ductwork, followed by Yazoo, and the green tails crashed into the wall, bricks spilling and dust swimming through the air in curls.

They crawled, hot, wet, and breathing heavily for clean air. They passed through to the other side, at last, to come face to face with Leip, himself, and 20 COMMAND members behind him. They immediately brought their arms to aim directly at the pair, and Leip chuckled smugly.

"Welcome boys," he greeted with falsity, "This is my party. You weren't invited." The COMMAND members laughed, along with Leip.

Yazoo stared at Leip. He was the common problem. He was the rebel, the one who hated in what he lived.

"Hypocrite..." Yazoo growled.

"'Scuse me, what was that?" Leip responded, his 20 men ready and waiting for the go-ahead.

"You're a hypocrite," Yazoo continued, "The scum of society we have to look at every day."

The men pushed their guns, only an insult away from firing, but Leip held up his hand to stop them.

"Explain," he ordered, and Yazoo dropped his arm, the Velvet Nightmare coming with it to rest at his side.

"You're but a fat fool, sitting in your almighty sewer throne, and rebelling against those you live under. You fight ShinRa, but you still live in Midgar. You must think they're foolish. But it is you, Rat King, who is the fool."

Peter's eyes were wide. The most he'd heard Yazoo speak was all so true and poetic. It was like reading a pleasent book in the middle of a storm. A refreshing insight to what may have been dark and disdainful.

"I have 20 men, here, with big guns, who beg to differ."

Again, those men laughed, and Peter took a stand in.

"Stop!" he yelled, "ShinRa has an ultimatum for you. You must restrain COMMAND within the next 24 hours or prepare to face defeat."

Leip and his men chuckled, seemingly amused at the unpleasent situation and present company.

"ShinRa gives _me_ an ultimatum?" he asked in a pretend innocence, "Why, I haven't done anything wrong."

Again, chuckling, and in a fury at their disbehaviour, Peter pulled out his own gun. They all glared at each other for a second before, finally, Peter ran a shot across four of Leip's men. The remaining 16 hastilly gathered around Peter in a tight circle, guns pointed straight to his head. Leip pulled through slowly to get in the middle and stare the boy down.

"Thank you for wasting my men. Your life will make up for it."

There, Peter died, being thoroughly bulleted through, each wound exploding with blood that splattered on Yazoo and the wall. The silver shadow blocked his face and backed away, eyes staring at Peter plainly. He was just as much a fool as they. When there was again silence, there was nothing left of Peter but a bloody pulp. Yazoo's arm left his face, blood coating his leather suit. He stared at it very dully, and looked up to Leip.Leip caught Yazoo's eye and grinned.

"And you? You're next? Or have you something else ShinRa wants to say?"

Yazoo stared for but a second before he walked up to him. He was only a bit taller than Leip, and he glared into his eyes.

"They say 'hi'."

Quicker than any could register and faster than he knew he could do, Yazoo had pulled his Velvet Nightmare to Leip's temple and squeezed the trigger. Blowback exploded out the side onto nearer COMMAND members, and Leip sunk from Yazoo's dead eyes. The members stared in horror, unsure of the use of killing Yazoo without Leip's instruction. They stared at Yazoo, and he stared at them. At that moment, time felt stopped. He felt in utmost control, something he hadn't experienced in ages. Nothing was moving, everything was dead. Like he. His soul's shell was empty, but a shadow within, resting like a poisonous disease, waiting to be released to eat at his insides. He shoved the barrel of the Velvet Nightmare up under his chin and closed his eyes.

"Into thy hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me."

He squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The hated colour surrounded him. It reminded him of cruelty; the cruelty of the death of something beautiful, and the waste to disreceive it. He was standing then, no feelings and no thoughts. No concious and no soul. Empty and dead. But from out of the cloud came two lights. Yazoo stared at them before a form appeared, becoming clearer and clearer, until it was no mistake who it was. 

"You are late, my dear"the formsaid with his soft, deep voice like a purr.

Yazoo's eyes filled with tears, and a smile, the real one he used to carry, pulled his petrified frown apart.

"Hojo," he said, with a bite of a sob and a laugh, hesitant to move. Hojo stepped foward, his dark eyes and hair contrasting viciously with the hated colour. He embraced Yazoo, the fragile clone he knew still the same.

"I'm glad you came," he said, looking into Yazoo's misty eyes.

"I'm happy you waited," Yazoo replied, tears falling with his closed eyes of release.

Now he would rest. And here, it was, that Yazoo realised the hated colour was not hated at all. It was life. It was truth. And it was love.

White was the colour Yazoo cherished.


End file.
